Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

“The want of parental affection,” wrote Poe, “has been the heaviest of my trials.” Edgar Allen Poe was, indeed, most unfortunate in his parents. His father, David Poe, was a mediocre traveling actor who drank heavily. His mother, Elizabeth Arnold, was a talented actress who was deserted by her husband when Edgar was still a baby. She died on tour in Richmond, Virginia, Leaving Edgar virtually an orphan before his third birthday.

The boy was taken in by John and Frances Allan, a charitable and childless couple in Richmond. John Allen, an ambitious and self-righteous merchant, became Edgar’s guardian (and the source of the writer’s middle name). He provided generously for Edgar’s early education, but he never formally adopted the boy.

Although Frances was kind to Edgar, the boy grew up feeling both the lack of a natural father and the disapproval of his foster father. John Allen made no secret of his disappointment in Edgarーin his idleness, in his indifference to business life, and in his literary ambitions. Surely Allen’s criticism added to Edgar’s growing moodiness.

Breaking Away

At seventeen, Edgar entered the University of Virginia. He did well in his studies, but resented the meager allowance Allan gave him. When he tried to earn extra money by gambling, he went deep into debt. On discovering this, Allen refused to help his foster son and withdrew him from college.

After an especially bitter quarrel with Allan, Poe ran off to Boston to make his own way in the world. There, in 1827, he published a small volume of poems, Tamerlane. The book did not attract much attention, and Poe could find no other work. In despair, he joined the army. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant major, but disliked the enlisted man’s life and appealed to Allan for help. At the request of his wife, who was dying, Allan interceded for Poe (for the last time) and agreed to help him enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Poe’s motive in going to the academy was probably to please his foster father.

When waiting to get into the academy, Poe publish a second book of poems, Al Aaraaf, in 1829 and received his first real recognition as a writer. The next year, while at West Point, Poe learned that Allan (now a widower) had remarried and that the woman was young enough to have children. Since this appeared to end all hope of becoming Allan’s heir, he dismissed himself from West Point.

Exploring the Darkness and the Depths

Poe moved in with his aunt, Maria Poe Clemm, in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1835, he married her thirteen-year-old daughter, Virginia. The difference in their age and Virginia’s poor health resulted in a very odd marriage, but need and a strong sense of family drew the three housemates together.

Poe supported his family by working as an editor at various magazines. He wrote when he could find the time, completing his only full-length novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, several years after his marriage. It was his short stories, however, that had the greatest effect on other writers.

In “The Gold Bug” and in the tales built around the intuitive sleuth C. Auguste Dupin, “The Purloined Letter” and “The Murders in Rue Morgue,” Poe laid the foundations for the modern detective story. In fact, he inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create Sherlock Holmes. In tales such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” Poe inspired the Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) to explore the criminal mind. Poe was a master of the psychological thriller. His tales of the ghastly and grotesque are peopled with distraught narrators, deranged heros, and doomed heroines, yet his purpose in creating such characters was not to present readers with convincing likeness of human beingsーnor merely to shock and frighten. Instead, Poe wanted to take us behind the curtain the separates the everyday from the incredible. He wanted to leave behind the sunlit, tangible, rational world and discover the unsettling truth that lies in the dark, irrational depths of the human mind.

Small Triumphs and Great Tragedy

Poe produced a considerable body of work in spite of humiliating poverty and a serious drinking problem. The slightest amount of alcohol make him senseless, yet he drank to escape a reality he found agonizing. Publication of his poem “The Raven” in 1845 brough Poe some fame at last, but financial security still eluded him.

When Virginia died of tuberculosis in 1847, Poe and “Muddy” (Virginia’s mother) were left alone. Poe grew more unstable. He pursued romance relentlessly, always looking for someone to “adopt” him. In 1849, on his way home after a visit to Virginia to see a woman he hoped to marry, Poe disappeared. A week later, he was found in a Baltimore tavernーdelirious and in cheap clothing that was not his, wet through from a raging storm. Four days later, having passed in and out of delirium, Poe died, leaving critics to argue endlessly about this final mystery. What happened during those last days in Baltimore?